Dr. Nidhi Didwania, Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, FET, MRIIRS delivered an invited expert talk on ‘Plant Pathologists entrepreneurship and policy perspectives for food security’ at the 7th International Conference on ‘Phytopathology in Achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals’ at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India, during January 16-20, 2020.

The IPS along with 12 most prominent plant protection societies/institutions within and outside the country have come together to celebrate 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health and planned to bring the world plant pathologists/microbiologists/biotechnologists on a common forum to discourse the issues related to plant pathogens, the disease they cause, the threat they pose to global agriculture and method & strategies to combat them.

More than 50 international delegates from France, Germany, Japan, Washington State, Thailand, Nigeria also presented their work along with 1000 delegates all over India at the conference.

Dr. Nidhi introduced the different aspects of entrepreneurship in Plant Pathology and emphasized that zeal and great idea are the only ingredients in a recipe for business start-up. She emphasised that Plant Pathologists should find alternatives to chemical pesticides and fertilizers as today in the form of fruits & vegetables, we are eating a slow poison. She enlightened about awareness of entrepreneurial concepts pertaining to biodynamic agriculture and to enable students to identify and learn how to make a mind-set to take up entrepreneurship as a challenging career.

The talk motivated the delegates from all over the world through good knowledge transfer and the recommendations were highly appreciated. She also acted as a session chair at one of the Technical sessions on ‘Plant Pathology Entrepreneurship’ in the conference.

At last Dr. R. N. Kharwar, BHU and Dr. Pankaj Baiswar, ICAR Research complex, thanked Dr. Nidhi Didwania for her valuable time and Research based expertise in the field of Plant Pathology.